“Somewhat obsessed by how we remember the past”, MCAD student Kirsten Camara designed the Analog Memory Desk. It has a holder embedded in its legs for scrolling huge rulls of butcher or Kraft paper over the desk’s surface to make “a sort of tablecloth of memory” to record “hundreds of little things that we don’t try to remember every year or even every week”. It can record months, possibly years of ideas, drawings, doodles, mind maps, phone numbers, calculations etc…

Wrote Improvised Life Contributor Susan Dworski who alerted us to Camara’s desk:

The idea of using rolling paper to roll out ideas quickly, without second guessing and editing, has always appealed to me, ever since working in my architect uncle’s office as a kid. I was so impressed by those guys with pockets full of mechanical pencils whipping out amazing sketches on rolls of parchment-colored drafting tissue, swooping their shirtsleeved arms over the surface to smooth it out, drawing swiftly, no erasing, and then ripping off another, and another sheet to overlay more sketches, putting eraser blocks on the curling edges as the stack grew taller and taller. There was something deeply satisfying anad organic about the process; you could just see the ideas and forms begin to take shape, not unlike like an artist chiseling shapes from a block of rough wood.

I’m not bad rapping computers and CAD programs. Just celebrating paper, pen and pencil.

I’m really thinking a lot about the interface of analog and digital. Moving forward, the world needs both/and.

Although you can’t actually buy Camara’s endless-paper desk, you can build your own: she has generously made detailed blueprints (here) available through a Creative Commons license. Or you can employ these other iterations of analog idea-capturing…

Ikea’s handy MÅLA easel for children comes with a roll of unprinted newsprint that rolls up from the back and drawn through a slot. It can be utilized by two artists at once working from either side.

This cool kraft paper holder can be mounted on the wall OR afixed to a surface…

And we still love artist Dieter Roth’s gray cardboard or paper”blotters” that he’d cover his worksurfaces with.,,,

…Over time, they became artworks…

…and then there’s just tearing off a sheet of kraft paper from a big roll, and covering the surface as you need it. (A (48″ x 200′ roll of kraft paper is a bargain at $20!)

 

(via Design Milk)